Wireless networks, such as wireless mesh networks, are formed from multiple wireless nodes that interact together to forward communications from one node to the next until the destination is reached. Wireless mesh networks may be planned and constructed by a single entity such that each wireless node is intentionally located so as to create a carefully organized network having a desired set of properties. Wireless mesh networks may also be created in an ad hoc fashion when they are “spontaneously” generated from multiple wireless nodes that are provided by different, possibly non-cooperating, entities.
Regardless, wireless networks, such as wireless mesh networks, are capable of propagating a communication from a source wireless node to a destination wireless node by transmitting or forwarding the communication between one or more intervening wireless nodes. Examples of communications that wireless networks are capable of propagating are documents, emails, transactions, web-related exchanges, real-time communications (RTCs), and so forth.
As compared to wired networks, the wireless nature of wireless networks usually enables them to be constructed more quickly, more cheaply, and possibly with less inter-user cooperation, especially for spontaneously-created wireless mesh networks. However, wireless networks suffer from a number of deficiencies as compared to wired networks. For example, wireless networks can experience (i) interference between and among different communications and (ii) rapidly-changing characteristics of the transmission medium. Either of these wireless network attributes can increase latency and/or decrease bandwidth.
Moreover, these attributes of wireless networks can be particularly harmful to RTCs because any changes to latency or bandwidth jeopardize the quality of service (QoS) involved in guaranteeing an RTC. Although RTCs are a popular application for network communications, it is unfortunately difficult to reliably provide an RTC over a wireless network, especially a wireless multi-hop mesh network.